Rowenna, Writing

Two months from today, Torn will be released! I'm already excited--and I want to celebrate ahead of time a little bit and give one you a gift!  In the spirit of the trade employed by the main character, Sophie, in Torn , this is a "Seamstress Prize Pack." I'm giving away a copy of the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking and a sweet little pair of embroidery snips. Why these items? Because my (sometimes obsessive) love of sewing and historical textiles was a huge part of the inspiration for Torn , and I am *loving* how this book by Lauren Stowell and Abby Cox makes the process of sewing historical gowns so accessible.  If you've ever wanted to dive into sewing historical garments, this is a wonderful entree.  And if you've been sewing for ages, there are still excellent patterns, tips, advice, and general prettiness to enjoy, too.  Frankly, even if you never intend to sew a stitch, it's a beautiful book to look at it and it cer...

Orbit unveiled the cover for Torn last week and GUYS. I love this thing!  One thing that's very weird about the cover of one's book is that, unless your circumstances are very unusual in traditional publishing or you're a multi-talented self-pubber who did her own cover, it's, um, not actually your work.  So people are generously complimenting me on it and I can't take the credit at all!  The artists at Orbit are amazing--captured the essence of the story and the vitals of the plot without resorting to anything too trope-y or sentimental.   The other thing that's kinda weird (everything is a little weird for me right now, it's all so new) is that your publisher sends your book to established authors to ask for quotes or "blurbs" about it.  Hopefully these are positive and not, you know, "about on par with the back of my cereal box."  They then feature these on the cover (unless they're the cereal box thing), and let me te...

I've been writing for years.  Even if I only count the years of "this is getting sorta serious, aiming for publication," it's been a long time.  In that time--about a decade--I never identified myself publicly as a writer. I thought of myself that way--if I had to pick a few words that make up my personal self-portrait, "writer" would be one of them.  But I didn't introduce myself that way to other people, or talk about it on Facebook or in those polite small-talk conversations at parties. Some close friends knew that I wrote steadily; a few knew where I was in the long, circling road to publication.  I suppose, if you cornered me, I didn't feel like I'd earned that moniker--I hadn't sold a book, I couldn't claim it as a profession, I wasn't "really" a writer in a way that the world at large would understand. Which is fine--this isn't one of those empowering posts about owning who you are and claiming the name "...

I realize I’ve been a little quiet around here recently.  Moms of toddlers will tell you that it’s when things get quiet in their houses that they know *something* is happening.  With toddlers, silent happenings are usually not a good thing.  In writing? They can be a really awesome thing. Long story short (when does that ever happen writing novels?): I’m incredibly excited to announce that Orbit will be publishing my novel Torn in spring of 2018—and even more exciting, we’ll be publishing a trilogy! The story follows a seamstress who can embed good luck charms into her creations--and becomes entangled in a revolution. Obligatory Publisher's Marketplace screenshot--because this little blurb means this is super-duper, 100%, don't bother pinching me official! Long story less short: Want to have the most exciting day of your career and then sit on the news for months? Then writing and publishing books is for you!  This has been in the works for a wh...

In case I haven't mentioned, I'm expecting.  This post makes a lot more sense with that info in hand. To the point--naming babies is harder than naming characters.  I never considered I'd have such a tricky time pinpointing potential names for The Little Stranger, but here I am, a couple months out from zero hour, still dithering on the name front.  Completely unexpected--because character names are never an issue for me. The Bean hanging with the Giant Bean in Chicago Our temporary placeholder name, to avoid calling the baby "It" or "The Uterine Parasite" (for some reason that bothered my husband), is "The Bean."  This was easy to come up with, probably because it's not permanent.  We aren't stuck with calling another human being "Bean" for the rest of our lives (nor is the Bean stuck with being The Bean).  Plus I had just looked at one of those food-chart-fetal-growth comparisons and the Bean was, at that point, the ...

We're all busy--with jobs, families, school, kids, volunteering, laundry...so how do you find time to write? I say it's all about claiming time. Obviously, there's the time you devote to writing--either hitting your goal word count or sitting butt-in-chair for a set time each day.  But that isn't what I'm talking about.  It's the other time--the time when you're doing other stuff--that I'm saying you can claim. Wait a second, you say-- I have to be at work from 9 to 5 .  Or I'm home working my tail off chasing kids around .  Or even But this laundry HAS to get done. Yeah, that laundry does need to get done.  Believe me, I hear you, and so does my overflowing hamper.  Here's the thing--you can still claim that time. I've been painting a lot lately.  The 1870s house that is our new home is beautiful--and covered with kitschy wallpaper and questionable paint choices from the previous owners.  A lot of my time lately has been stripping...

Every writer has answered the question at least once--panster or plotter? I'm sure there is no right way--maybe there are more efficient ways, or ways that produce more creative twists, or, most likely, ways that are the most right for each individual.  In college I had a roommate who literally outlined every paper down to the paragraph.  Beautiful, typed, complete outlines, and they took forever to create--but the actual paper-writing part was shortened because she already knew what she was going to say.  Me?  I never outlined more than what was in my head already.  Even my thesis outline was pretty much section titles and quick notes.  (I think that drove my advisor batty.) Still, a novel isn't a five-page essay, a twenty-page paper, or even a thesis.  Despite that, I pantsed at first.  It was what I knew, and what worked for me.  You know what?  It worked for writing novels, too.  Just not very well. That is, I doubled back...